Well, let’s see – 6 day autotrip with about 2000 km. around Bulgaria

The route was something like that

1. Day 1 – Ruse, Sofia, Rila monastery, Sandanski (where we slept because Melnik was fully reserved for the night)
2. Day 2 – Sandanski, Petrich (Rupite), Samuilova fortress, Melnik, Rozhen monastery, Pazardzhik (where we slept in an awful hotel, named with the great name Elbrus)
3. Day 3 – Pazardzhik, via a small curvy road with some dams, Trigrad gorge and the two caves nearby (Yagodinska cave, Dyavolsko gyrlo cave), Shiroka lyka (where we almost got to see the  traditional Bulgarian kukeri festival – something like westerners Helloween ), Bachkovo monastery
4. Day 4 – Bachkovo monastery, Asenova fortress (which was closed due to the snowstorm that started previous night), Plovdiv (the old city and the Amphitheater), Panagyurishte (where we initially intended to sleep, but didn’t find appealing), Strelcha (where we stumbled on a Thracian tomb and took a look at), Koprivshtitsa
5. Day 5 – Koprivshtitsa, Klisura, Sopot, Karlovo, Kalofer, Koprivshtitsa – all revival Bulgarian cities. And we decided to stay in Koprivshtitsa because the hotel we were staying was so great, and the city itself is lovely.
6. Day 6 (Final) – Koprivshtitsa, Kazanlyk (where we saw the Unesco thracian tomb), The ‘Hainboaz’ mountain pass (due to Shipka pass being closed from sliding trucks and snow), Veliko Tyrnovo, Ruse

In other words – 6 great days with all kinds of weather, but mostly funny. I’ll allow myself to post a link to the Picasa Web Galleries again…. ~HERE~

Edit: I’m uploading a map of the trip:

Me, Vescho and Marto in fron of the Bachkovo monastery

The second part of our group was a little bit late (overslept ), so we waited for them to come and look around the monastery. While we were there we enjoyed the local views, the sound of the nearby river, etc.

Next object – the impressive Wonderful Bridges. Two rock phenomenas in Bulgaria that attract lots of visitors each year.

Wonderful bridges

We couldn’t miss the opportunity to buy some local cheese and eat a local pastry called ‘prepitenichka’ – kind of a dough pancake with cheese or jam in it.

Third for the day was Rojen observatory. We reached it just as it was about to start raining again. Waited about 15 minutes and got in for a guided tour.

Rojen observatory

Some interesting facts, a walk around, some wonderful views from the top of the tower and an hour later we took off from Rojen. And then it started raining – it was raining cats and dogs, as it’s said. The fourth object of our trip (Pamporovo) we missed because of the rain. Instead we headed on the line Shiroka Lyka – Trigrad to settle for the evening. In Shiroka Lyka we stopped for a meal. We waited for too long but finally we tried the rodopian specialty – Patatnik. Delicious!!! What was in front of us was a ride across the Trigrad gorge – beautiful river canyon. Tiny roads, but instead – what a beauty it was. A couple of hours wandering because we didn’t book anything for the evening – and we settled in Teshel: a small village, just standing between our targets for the third day.

Day 3 – May 4th

I’m getting kinda lazy to describe in details Instead I’ll just move on to the goals for the day:

Devils throat – there was the highest cave waterfall in Bulgaria: 60 m they say. We couldn’t exactly see it, but we heard it. Definitely!

Devils throat

In front of the we heard a Rodopi bagpipe. Native!

Yagodinska cave – this one was very impressive. Its length (the guided part) is 1.1 km and the guides were very professional – they mixed interesting facts for the cave with humor/jokes. It’s a fun way to learn something and to stay focused during the whole tour of 45 minutes.

Perperikon – Perperikon was the final for our trip. We got late for it and went there just after 5.30 pm. No problem, all the visitors were gone, so we could enjoy it with only a bunch of crazy people like us . Ancient thracian city with well preserved ruins. Interesting place, has some sort of nice vibe in it.

Parts of Perperikon

After all of this it was already about 6:30 pm and we had about 450 km trip back to Rousse. Exhausting, but still – about 2:30 am in the next morning we were back. After about 1200 km road trip, many wonderful sights, three nice days of adventures.

More photos from the trip can be seen in my Picasa Web Albums.